Disney employees aren’t ready to return to the office full-time just yet. More than 2,000 workers have signed a petition asking CEO Bob Iger to reconsider a policy that would require them to work four days a week in person. More than 400 employees testified to the importance of flexibility at Disney. Something is loading.
Thanks for recording!
Access your favorite topics in a personalized feed on the go. download app
Walt Disney Co. employees are fighting a mandate that would require workers to return to the office four days a week starting in March.
Staff members signed a petition to CEO Bob Iger asking him to reconsider the new rule, according to The Washington Post, which reviewed the document. It is said to have been signed by more than 2,300 workers in protest against what will be one of the strictest attendance policies in the post-pandemic corporate world.
In the petition, Disney employees allege the change has the potential “to have unintended consequences that cause long-term damage to the business.” Disney’s 200,000 employees currently work a hybrid schedule that requires two or three days in the office each week.
“This policy will slow, if not reverse, our post-COVID recovery and growth by creating critical resource shortages and causing irreplaceable institutional knowledge loss,” the signatories wrote, according to The Washington Post.
According to the report, the policy was announced in January when Iger suggested that working in person at the office would benefit both the company and the workers. However, employees gave their own testimonies of how the change made them feel “kicked out.”
“There is value in being together, but we also need to look to the future and embrace new paradigms that add value,” the petition reads.
Parents, self-described neurodivergent workers, and people with physical disabilities have all testified to the importance of flexibility at Disney.
“Flexibility at Disney really felt like a fresh start,” an unidentified employee told the Post. “Now it feels like we’re going backwards.”
Earlier this month, Iger laid off thousands of Disney employees and effectively dismantled the company’s existing structure after taking over as CEO.
Disney did not immediately respond to Insider’s request to comment on the petition.